A View from the Hills
My friend, neighbor and fellow scribe, Marjorie, comes with an armload of spring. I reach out to accept a vase (half filled to avoid spills) for she has come on foot from her home that is a winding country road away from mine.
The bountiful offering is the latest of many she has tendered through our years of friendship. The daffodils have stored solar energy, and their golden glow sparkles on our patio and dispels the gloom of an overcast day.
Camellias spill over the sides of the vase, cascade like a cerise waterfall, and, from the bouquet's heart, fragrant narcissus proclaims, "the long winter is past."
Such blooms sing the glory of creation and remind us that God's heart is nearer to gardeners who, when they slip a seed or a bulb into the ground, enter into a mystic pact with their maker.
The born gardener views every uncultivated patch of earth as an invitation to transform it. Poppies, lilies, a tulip tree or wisteria vine are sown broadcast, or placed just so to create a palette to gladden the eye.
Marjorie's garden bespeaks winter planning for spring when tulips, narcissus, and daffodils will appear. Easter will bring the elegant Calla lily. We wait impatiently for this horticultural aristocrat to lend a touch of class to our living room, blush for our own meagre efforts, and marvel at the energy and industry that is invested to produce such treasures - attributes we black thumbs of the world seem to have been denied.
Like most gardeners, Marjorie dispenses advice and offers "starters" when we admire her handiwork. Once, inspired by her zeal and the beauty of her garden, I accepted iris bulbs to plant outside my studio. After the first flush of success, my vision of a bank of color faded with the flowers.
I can't account for the failure Marjorie assured "the deer won't eat them, and gophers don't like them," but something went amiss and my iris, like so many other attempts, proved to be a one season run.
Bunny Sheffield, another avid gardener friend, might comment dryly, "Some people are plain lazy." Bunny and her husband Hank haunt nurseries and collect plants to add to their already impressive hilltop acreage where fruit trees, berry vines and every manner of bloom abound. Like Marjorie, Bunny offers "starters" hopefully, regales me with their virtues, and the simplicity of tending them, the joy of watching them grow. Impervious to my black thumb, Bunny keeps trying. I keep denying.
Yet, more than anything I can imagine, a garden stirs me, and fills me with wistful longing, for, whatever combination of virtues are required to create one, I possess them not.
In all weather the intrepid ones go forth, spading, fertilizing, weeding, and seeding, and finally clipping their wondrous blooms to share with friends. I wonder if they guess how deeply these gifts move us.
Like a prayer a flower has the capacity to lift the spirit, gladden the soul and fill the heart with wonder. We accept them as a labor of love, and color ourselves lucky for the gardeners who dwell among us and spread their enchantment, like an emperor's priceless jewels, upon the earth.
Mary Cristy is a Los Altos Hills-based free-lance writer and longtimecontributor to theTown Crier.